Moons - Facts about the Moons of the Solar System Moons Eris Moons There are more than 181 moons of the various planets, dwarf planets and asteroid in the solar system. The planets Mercury and Venus do not have any moons and neither does the dwarf planet Ceres. Find out the number of moons each planet has and their names below. Terrestrial Planet Moons The Earth’s Moon – 1 The Earth has a single moon; the Moon sometime also referred to as Luna. The Moon Mars’ Moons – 2 Mars has two moons called Phobos and Deimos. They were discovered in 1877 by astronomer Asaph Hall, who named them for the Latin terms “fear” and “panic”. These moons are thought to be captured asteroids and are among the smallest natural satellites in the solar system. Phobos & Deimos Jupiter’s Moons – 67 Jupiter is swarming with at least 67 moons in orbit around it, the largest number of natural satellites around any of the planets. Jupiter’s 4 largest moons; Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa are known as the Galilean Moons, named after their discoverer Galileo Galilei.

They were also observed at about the same time by astronomer Simon Marius.

Galilean Moons – Io , Europa , Ganymede & Callisto Inner Moons – Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea & Thebe Other Moons – Themisto, Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, S/2000 J 11, Carpo, S/2003 J 12, Euporie, S/2003 J 3, S/2003 J 18, S/2011 J 1, S/2010 J 2, Thelxinoe, Euanthe, Helike, Orthosie, Iocaste, S/2003 J 16, Praxidike, Harpalyke, Mneme, Hermippe, Thyone, Ananke, Herse, Aitne, Kale, Taygete, S/2003 J 19, Chaldene, S/2003 J 15, S/2003 J 10, S/2003 J 23, Erinome, Aoede, Kallichore, Kalyke,

 Carme, Callirrhoe, Eurydome, S/2011 J 2, Pasithee, S/2010 J 1, Kore, Cyllene, Eukelade, S/2003 J 4, Pasiphae, Hegemone, Arche, Isonoe, S/2003 J 9, S/2003 J 5, Sinope, Sponde, Autonoe, Megaclite & S/2003 J 2 Saturn’s Moons – 62 Saturn has at least 62 moons orbiting it, some of them inside the ring system which helps shape the rings.

They range from very tiny worlds of less than a kilometer in diameter to spherical moons such as Titan. Their shapes range from irregular worlds to ellipsoidal to almost completely rounded. The first of Saturn’s moons to be observed was Titan in 1655 by Christiaan Huygens, another moon was not found until 1671 when Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered Iapetus. Two of Saturn’s moons (Janus & Epimetheus) swap orbits every 4 years. Notable Moons – Titan , Enceladus , Iapetus , Rhea , Mimas, Tethys & Dione.

Other Moons – S/2009 S 1, Pan, Daphnis, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Aegaeon, Methone, Anthe, Pallene, Telesto, Calypso, Helene, Polydeuces, Hyperion, Kiviuq, Ijiraq, Phoebe, Paaliaq, Skathi, Albiorix, S/2007 S 2, Bebhionn, Erriapus, Skoll, Siarnaq, Tarqeq, S/2004 S 13, Greip, Hyrrokkin, Jarnsaxa, Tarvos, Mundilfari, S/2006 S 1, S/2004 S 17, Bergelmir, Narvi, Suttungr, Hati, S/2004 S 12, Farbauti, Thrymr, Aegir, S/2007 S 3, Bestla, S/2004 S 7, S/2006 S 3, Fenrir, Surtur, Kari, Y

mir, Loge & Fornjot Uranus’ Moons – 27 Uranus is known to have 27 in orbit around it.

The five largest are Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. The innermost moons are similar in characteristics with the thin rings. The five largest moons are rounded, and four of them show some kind of internal activity which shapes their surfaces. William Herschel who discovered Uranus in 1781 also observed the largest two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. Notable Moons – Miranda , Titania , Ariel, Umbriel & Oberon Other Moons – Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda, Perdita, Puck, Mab, Francisco, Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo, Sycorax, Margaret, Prospero, Setebos & Ferdinand Neptune’s Moons – 14 Neptune has at least 14 moons. The largest of these, Triton was discovered by William Lassell in 1846 one day after the discovery of Neptune, it was more than 100 years later before a second moon was found.

The most distant moon of Neptune is called Neso, and orbits so far away that it takes 26 years to make one trip around the planet. Notable Moons – Triton , Nereid & Proteus Other Moons – Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, S/2004 N 1, Halimede, Sao, Laomedeia, Psamathe & Neso Pluto’s Moons – 5 Hydra, Nyx, Styx, and Kerberos are the smaller moons of Pluto. They lie out beyond Charon. Nix and Hydra were discovered using Hubble Space Telescope on May 15, 2005. They have nearly circular orbits at 48,700 and 64,800 kilometres, respectively. Kerberos was discovered in 2011, and Styx was found in 2012, both by Hubble Space Telescope. These four moons rotate chaotically on their axes. These moons were likely created during a giant collision, which scattered these tiny worlds into orbit around Pluto and Charon.

The Solar System: Earth and Moon | The Institute for Creation Research The Solar System: Earth and Moon by Jason Lisle, Ph.D. * Resources › Physical Sciences Resources › Astronomy When the Voyager 1 spacecraft reached the edge of our solar system in 1990, it turned its camera around and photographed Earth. From such a tremendous distance, the earth appears as a tiny bluish-white grain of sand lost in an ocean of black. This famous image of Earth is named the Pale Blue Dot. From a secular perspective, that is all Earth is—a tiny bit of rock and water in a vast and meaningless universe of chance. But in the Christian worldview, this pale blue dot is the most important planet in the universe. Properties of Earth Earth orbits the sun at an average distance of 93 million miles. Since it is convenient to compare other orbits to Earth’s orbit, we refer to this distance as one astronomical unit, or AU. At one AU, it takes Earth one year to complete an orbit. Many units are defined in terms of Earth’s orbital or rotational characteristics. Earth’s solar day is 24 hours, and this is what we normally mean when we use the word “day” without any other qualifiers.

Earth takes 23 hours and 56 minutes to rotate once, relative to the stars—a sidereal day. Physically, Earth’s properties are similar to the other terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, and Mars. These are all solid, rocky worlds, orbiting relatively close to the sun. They all have mountains, valleys, rifts, canyons, and craters. Earth is the largest of these four planets in diameter—two and one half times larger than Mercury, just under twice the size of Mars, and only five percent larger than Venus. So, the sizes are not all that different. But despite these similarities, Earth is unique in many ways. Uniqueness of Earth Most significantly, Earth is the only planet known to contain living organisms. And they are ubiquitous. In virtually every environment on this planet, we discover creatures that flourish. This stands in striking contrast to the lifeless, barren surface of the other planets. Many of Earth’s other unique qualities seem to be specifically designed to support such life. Over 70 percent of Earth is covered with liquid water. No other known planet has such an abundance of water.

Since water is an essential requirement for all known life, the presence of water on Earth seems to be a key design feature. Earth orbits at just the right distance from the sun for temperatures to allow for liquid water. Earth’s atmospheric pressure is also just right for liquid water. All of these properties seem designed for life. Earth’s atmosphere has a protective layer of ozone that partially blocks ultraviolet radiation. Such radiation can be very damaging to living tissue; so this too is a design feature. Unlike Venus, Earth has a strong magnetic field. This field deflects harmful cosmic radiation, protecting inhabitants on Earth’s surface. The strength of the magnetic field has been slowly but continually dropping since scientists have been able to measure it nearly two centuries ago. This drop is consistent with Earth’s biblical age of around 6,000 years but is wildly inconsistent with the secular assumption of billions of years.1 Earth is tilted on its axis 23.4 degrees relative to its orbit around the sun. This causes Earth to experience seasons. From late March to late September, Earth is in the part of its orbit where its North Pole is tilted toward the sun.

Those of us who live in the northern hemisphere observe that the sun appears higher in the sky than it does at other times, and we experience more hours of daylight. Since we receive greater accumulated solar energy at this time of year, our temperatures are warmer than they are in other seasons. From late September through late March, Earth is in the part of its orbit where the North Pole is tipped away from the sun. During this time, the southern hemisphere receives more heat and light from the sun, while northern hemisphere inhabitants see the sun lower in the sky and experience less than 12 hours of daylight. The seasons are not caused by the slightly elliptical orbit of Earth. On the contrary, Earth is slightly closer to the sun in the northern hemisphere winter.2 This tilt appears to be well-designed for life. If Earth were tilted less, the polar regions would receive less energy, reducing the habitable area of the planet. If the earth were tilted more, the seasons would become more extreme, potentially reducing plant-growing seasons and making the environment less hospitable. Earth is the only planet known to have plate tectonics. While other planets have tectonic activity as evidenced by volcanoes, their crusts are not divided into plates.

Many creation scientists believe that Earth’s continents were connected before the global Flood and moved apart during the Flood year. Geophysicist John Baumgardner’s model of “runaway subduction” explains the global Flood of Noah’s day in terms of catastrophic plate tectonics that apparently took place during the Flood year.3 It appears that God constructed Earth with the built-in capacity to produce and experience a global flood. None of the other planets have substantial liquid water at present. And even if they did, they would have no mechanism for runaway subduction. The Moon Earth also has a large natural satellite—the moon. Earth’s moon is the fifth-largest moon in the solar system. It is over one quarter the size of Earth in diameter. No other planet has a moon this large in proportion to the size of the planet. The moon aids life on Earth by inducing tides.4 Tides prevent the oceans from stagnating, and they clean shorelines. The moon also provides light at night—it “rules the night” ( Genesis 1:16 ), being far brighter than any other regular nighttime celestial object. No other planet has such a bright moon in its night sky. The lunar surface is barren, rocky, and cratered.

The moon has highlands that are heavily cratered. It also has lower, relatively smooth regions called maria. These maria (Latin for “seas”) appear as the large dark regions in images of the moon. Apparently, they are large impact basins that have filled in with magma, erasing any previous record of cratering. Curiously, the maria are almost entirely on the Earth-facing side of the moon where they cause the visual impression of the “man in the moon.” The moon has no substantial atmosphere, so its sky remains black even when the sun is up. Without an atmosphere to redistribute thermal energy, the temperature on the moon can exceed 200°F during the day and drop to -280°F at night. The moon rotates slowly, taking 27.3 days to rotate once. This is also exactly how long it takes the moon to orbit Earth. For this reason, observers on Earth can only ever see one side of the moon. Some people have the impression that the moon does not rotate since we always see the same side. But this isn’t so. If the moon did not rotate (relative to the stars), we would see different sides of it as it orbits around Earth.

The fact that the rotation and revolution of the moon have exactly the same period is called tidal locking.5 Such a configuration is very stable. If the moon did not rotate at the same rate it revolved, Earth would induce land-tides on the moon, forcing it eventually to become tidally locked. All large and many small moons in our solar system are tidally locked. The Uniqueness of the Moon The moon has a number of distinctive characteristics. It is both 400 times smaller and 400 times closer to Earth than the sun is. This means that the moon and sun have about the same apparent size in our sky on average.6 This makes total solar eclipses possible. Earth is the only known planet that can experience eclipses where its moon so precisely covers the sun.7 This has made possible the discovery of the solar chromosphere. The chromosphere can only be seen by eye during a total solar eclipse.8 The moon orbits very close to the ecliptic—the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun.9 All other large moons in the solar system orbit in the plane of their planet’s equator except Triton, which orbits neither in the ecliptic nor the equatorial plane of its planet.

This makes solar and lunar eclipses more common on Earth than they would be if the moon orbited around the planet’s equator as other moons do. Yet, because the moon does not orbit exactly in the ecliptic, we do not have eclipses every month. A Young Moon As the moon induces tides on Earth, the planet rotates faster than the moon orbits and the tidal bulges get “ahead” of the moon. They then pull forward on the moon, causing it to gain orbital energy and move away from Earth. The effect is small but measurable—the moon moves away from the Earth by about 1.5 inches every year. The recession effect would have been larger in the past, because if the moon were closer to the earth, the tides would be larger. If we extrapolate this effect into a hypothetical past, we find that the moon would have been touching Earth 1.4 billion years ago.10 So, Earth and the moon cannot be older than that. Yet secular scientists claim that Earth and the moon are over four billion years old. The evidence from the recession of the moon is inconsistent with the secular age estimate.

Of course, 6,000 years ago, the moon would have been only 730 feet closer to Earth. So, lunar recession is not a problem for the biblical timescale. Conclusion Of the planets in our solar system, Earth is uniquely designed for life, and the moon is uniquely designed to aid life on Earth. God chose to spend five of the six days of creation working on Earth, making it just the way He wanted it to be. All the other planets were created in one day—Day Four ( Genesis 1:14-19 ).11 It is as if God took extra care to create Earth. Astronomers have now discovered hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, and it is likely that billions more remain undiscovered. Yet, of all the planets in the universe, Earth is where God chose to place the creatures whom He made in His own image. It is our planet where Almighty God, out of His great love for us, took on human nature, died our death, and rose in glory. Not bad for a pale blue dot! References Based on physics’ first principles, we would expect this to be an exponential decay. Current measurements are consistent with this.

Secularists are forced to assume that the magnetic fields of planets are somehow “recharged” in a magnetic dynamo cycle. But such models are problematic. So far, the secularists have not demonstrated that magnetic fields can actually be maintained over billions of years. Earth reaches perihelion (its closest point to the sun) around January 3, at which time our planet is 91.4 million miles away from the sun. In early July, Earth reaches aphelion (its farthest distance from the sun) at a distance of 94.5 million miles. Baumgardner, J. R. 1994. Runaway Subduction as the Driving Mechanism for the Genesis Flood . In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism. R. E. Walsh, ed. Pittsburg, PA: Creation Science Fellowship, 63-86. The gravity of the sun also contributes to tides. But the effect from the moon is much stronger. Tidal locking is the simplest example of a resonance. A resonance occurs when two periods (such as an orbital period and a rotation period) can be expressed as a simple fraction. Tidal locking is a 1:1 resonance.

The moon’s orbit is elliptical. So, the angular size of the moon can change by a few percent in our sky. The same is true of the sun since Earth’s orbit is also slightly elliptical. Therefore, sometimes the moon will appear slightly larger than the sun and other times somewhat smaller. It is unsafe to look at the sun without eye protection, except at the moment of totality during a total solar eclipse. The plane of the moon’s orbit is tilted only 5 degrees relative to the ecliptic. Secular attempts to ameliorate this problem (such as supposing that the recession rate is anomalously fast at present) largely involve denying the secular principles of uniformitarianism and naturalism. But without those principles, there would be no reason to suppose an old age for the earth or moon in the first place. The Hebrew word kowkab is translated as “stars” in Genesis 1:16 and includes planets that appear as wandering stars in our night sky. Hence, all planets except Earth were created on Day Four along with the sun, moon, and stars. * Dr. Lisle is Director of Physical Sciences at the Institute for Creation Research and received his Ph.D.

in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado. HubbleSite - Reference Desk - FAQs Reference Desk Frequently Asked Questions What is the solar system? The solar system consists of a central star, the Sun, and all of the smaller celestial bodies that continuously travel around it. The smaller bodies include eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, which are themselves orbited by more than 140 moons. (Only Mercury and Venus have no moons.) In addition, the solar system contains millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets. All of these objects are held together in a group by the Sun's gravity. How did the solar system form? The planets, asteroids and comets in the solar system are loose objects left over from the formation of the Sun. Originally the gas and dust that would become the Sun was the core of a cloud much larger than the solar system, probably several light-years across. (One light-year is equal to approximately 6,000,000,000,000 miles.) The core was slowly rotating at first, but as it collapsed it spun faster, like a spinning ice-skater pulling in his arms.

The rotation prevented the material at the core's equator from collapsing as fast as material at the poles, so the core became a spinning disk. Gas and dust in the disc spiraled gradually in to the center, where it accumulated to form the Sun. But because dust is denser than gas, some of the dust settled to the mid-plane of the disc. These dust particles stuck together to make clumps, then clumps stuck together to make rocks, then rocks collided to make planets. In the case of the "gas giant" planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the rocky cores were massive enough to also attract some of the gas. The outer layers of these planets are made up of hydrogen and other gases. So the Sun is the collapsed core of an interstellar gas cloud, and the planets, asteroids and comets are small lumps of dust or ice chunks which stayed in orbit instead of spiraling into the Sun. The planets all formed within a very short period, probably a few million years, about five billion years ago. How old is the solar system? The solar system is about 4.6 billion years old. How big is the solar system? There are no physical boundaries in space.

The solar system consists of eight planets orbiting around one star: the Sun. Neptune, the farthest planet from the Sun, orbits approximately 30astronomical units from the Sun. An astronomical unit is a unit of length used by astronomers. One astronomical unit equals the distance from Earth to the Sun: 93 million miles (149 million km). Some of the comets associated with the solar system travel on orbits that take them much farther from the Sun than Neptune. How many planets are there in our solar system? Our solar system officially has eight planets and one star: the Sun. In order from the Sun out, the planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The discovery of an object larger than Pluto in 2005 rekindled the debate over whether such objects, belonging to the "Kuiper Belt" – a collection of icy bodies located beyond Neptune – should be called planets. Pluto and other large members of the Kuiper Belt are now considered "dwarf planets." Can you see any planets with the "naked eye?" Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be seen with the unaided eye.

That is how they were discovered by ancient civilizations. Uranus and Neptune were discovered using telescopes. Are there differences among the planets in our solar system? Planets come in different sizes, compositions and colors. The four planets closer to the Sun are called "rocky" planets. They are small in size and similar to Earth in composition. They have no rings and only two of them (Earth and Mars) have moons. The four outer planets, also called "gas giants," are much larger than the rocky planets. They all have rings and have many moons. The gas giants are made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, frozen water, ammonia, methane and carbon monoxide. Which planets are called the "rocky" or "terrestrial" planets? Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are called "rocky" or "terrestrial" planets. They are similar to Earth in composition. Heat from the Sun evaporated lightweight elements like hydrogen and helium into interplanetary space. Mostly rock and metal was left in this zone and clumped together to form the inner rocky planets. Which planets are called the "gaseous" planets? Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are called the "gaseous" planets.

Jupiter and Saturn contain the largest percentages of hydrogen and helium, while Uranus and Neptune contain the largest shares of ices – frozen water, ammonia, methane and carbon monoxide. Which planets have rings? The four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have rings. How thick are Saturn's rings? The Hubble telescope has captured snapshots of Saturn with its rings nearly edge-on to our view. Read more about it . Saturn's rings are incredibly thin. The main rings are generally only about 30 feet (10 meters) thick, though parts of the main and other rings can be several kilometers thick. The rings are made of dusty ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Find out more from HubbleSite: Hubble discoveries about Saturn in NewsCenter . How close do Earth and Mars get? Mars and Earth are like two cars on a racetrack as they journey around the Sun.

Earth is on the inside track and travels faster than Mars, which is on the outside. When Earth laps Mars about every two years, it comes as close as 35 million miles (56 million km) or as far away as 63 million miles (101 million km) because of Mars’ highly elongated orbit. What is a comet? Comets are small, fragile, irregularly shaped bodies composed mostly of a mixture of water ice (ice composed of H20), dust, and carbon- and silicon-based compounds. They have highly elliptical orbits that repeatedly bring them very close to the Sun and then swing them into space. Comets have three distinct parts: a nucleus, a coma and a tail. The solid core is called the nucleus, which develops a coma with one or more tails when a comet sweeps close to the Sun. The coma is the dusty, fuzzy cloud around the nucleus of a comet, and the tail extends from the comet and points away from the Sun. The coma and tails of a comet appear only when the comet is near the Sun. Find out more from HubbleSite: Hubble discoveries about comets from NewsCenter . How did comets form?

Comets are some of the material left over from the formation of the planets. Our entire solar system, including comets, was created by the collapse of a giant, diffuse cloud of gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago. Much of the matter merged into planets, but some remained to form small lumps of frozen gas and dust in the outer region of the solar system, where temperatures were cold enough to produce ice. Find out more from HubbleSite: Hubble discoveries about comets from NewsCenter . Why do comets have tails? Comets are lumps of frozen water ice, gas and dust. As a comet approaches the Sun, it starts to heat up. The ice transforms directly from a solid to a vapor, releasing the dust particles embedded inside. Sunlight and the stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun – the solar wind – sweeps the evaporated material and dust back in a long tail. The comet's ingredients determine the types and number of tails. What are the types of comet tails? There are two types of comet tails: dust and gas ion. A dust tail contains small, solid particles that are about the same size found in cigarette smoke.

This tail forms because sunlight pushes on these small particles, gently shoving them away from the comet’s nucleus. Because the pressure from sunlight is relatively weak, the dust particles end up forming a diffuse, curved tail. A gas ion tail forms when ultraviolet sunlight rips one or more electrons from gas atoms in the coma, making them into ions (a process called ionization). The solar wind then carries these ions straight outward away from the Sun. The resulting tail is straighter and narrower. Both types of tails may extend millions of kilometers into space. As a comet heads away from the Sun, its tail dissipates, its coma disappears, and the matter contained in its nucleus freezes into a rock-like material. Where do comets come from? Comets are found in two main regions of the solar system: the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. There are two types of comets: short-period comets and long-period comets. Short-period comets – comets that frequently return to the inner solar system – probably come from the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Astronomers estimate that this belt contains at least 200 million objects, which are thought to have remained essentially unchanged since the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Long-period comets, which can take thousands of years to complete their orbits, are thought to emanate from the Oort Cloud, a vast group of frozen bodies in the outer part of the solar system. The Oort Cloud is thought to extend 50,000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Oort Cloud comets, like their Kuiper Belt brothers, probably originated in the region of the solar system between Jupiter and Neptune, but were ejected from to the Oort Cloud by close encounters with the gravity of the giant planets. Comets are kicked out of the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt by the pull of the gravity of another object – a planet, a star, or another small body. They then begin their journey toward the inner solar system and the Sun. What path do comets follow through the solar system? Planets have nearly circular orbits, but comets have elongated paths around the Sun. A comet is at "aphelion" when its orbit is farthest from the Sun.

It is at "perihelion" when it is closest to the Sun. Due to angular momentum, a comet will travel fastest at perihelion and will slow down as it approaches aphelion. Comets can be classified by their orbital period: that is, the time it takes them to make one complete trip around the Sun. Comets with short and intermediate orbital periods of less than 200 years – like Comet Halley, whose orbital period is 76 years – spend most of their time between Pluto and the Sun. These comets originally formed in the Kuiper Belt, but a gravitational "push" from the planets, especially Jupiter, swung them closer to the Sun. A long-period comet will have an orbital period of more than 200 years. Comet Hale-Bopp, for example, completes an orbit about every 4,000 years. Scientists think that this type of comet spends most of its time way out in the Oort Cloud at the farthest edge of our solar system. What is the difference between a meteor, a meteoroid, a meteorite, an asteroid and a comet? Most of us probably have seen meteors or shooting stars.

A meteor is the flash of light that we see in the night sky when a small chunk of interplanetary debris burns up as it passes through our atmosphere. "Meteor" refers to the flash of light caused by the debris, not the debris itself. The debris is called a meteoroid. A meteoroid is a piece of interplanetary matter that is smaller than a kilometer and frequently only millimeters in size. Most meteoroids that enter the Earth's atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet's surface. If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called a meteorite. Although the vast majority of meteorites are very small, their size can range from about a fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-destroying boulder). Asteroids are generally larger chunks of rock that come from the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Comets are asteroid-like objects covered with ice, methane, ammonia, and other compounds that develop a fuzzy, cloud-like shell called a coma and sometimes a visible tail whenever they orbit close to the Sun. Find out more from HubbleSite: Hubble discoveries about asteroids , comets , and Kuiper Belt objects from NewsCenter . What is the asteroid belt? The asteroid belt is a zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Scientists believe that the asteroids in the asteroid belt never formed a planet because the gravity of nearby Jupiter kept pulling them apart. Today, millions of asteroids probably inhabit the asteroid belt, with many more scattered throughout the solar system. Find out more from HubbleSite: Hubble discoveries about asteroids from NewsCenter . What is Planet X? When astronomer Percival Lowell decided to search for a planet beyond Neptune in the 1930s, he called the object of his search "Planet X." This search led to the discovery of Pluto, but for many years some astronomers believed that another world larger than Pluto must exist undiscovered beyond Neptune. They thought this because Neptune's orbit seemed to be influenced by the gravity of an unseen planet.

More recent studies indicate that Neptune's orbit is not influenced by undiscovered bodies, and that a large "Planet X" most likely does not exist. Some of the myths and misconceptions about Planet X are debunked on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy website: The prospects for new planet discoveries in our solar system are small. However, astronomers are now finding hundreds of planets orbiting other stars. Has Hubble looked for Planet X? Astronomers are always on the lookout for new members of the solar system. The most active programs involve searches for new comets, asteroids and satellites of the outer planets, but a few scientists have undertaken an on-again, off-again search for planets beyond Neptune. Astronomers can rule out an object as big as Jupiter orbiting a little further out than Neptune, since its gravitational effect on Neptuneï¿½s orbit would be pretty obvious. It would also be easily visible because of its brightness. To go undetected, a planet similar in size and composition to the other outer planets would have to be very far from the Sun.

We do know of many other objects orbiting the Sun that are similar to Pluto, which belongs to the Kuiper Belt – a field of icy, comet-like bodies located beyond Neptune. In 2005, an object likely larger than Pluto, named Eris, was located in the Kuiper Belt. Find out more on HubbleSite: Moons of Saturn, Uranus, & Neptune Moons of Saturn, Uranus, & Neptune Summary: The moons of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune range in size, though most are small compared to Jupiter's moons. Titan, the largest in this group, has an atmosphere and liquid lakes. Sections: Titan: What lies beneath the smog? Titan Unlike most other moons in our solar system, Titan has a very thick atmosphere that hides its surface from view. Chemicals in the atmosphere give Titan its reddish color. Titan's atmospheric composition: 90% nitrogen 10% mixture of argon, methane, ethane and other hydrogen compounds Despite its distance from the Sun, Titan's surface temperature is slightly warmer than it otherwise would be due to the greenhouse effect. This is the same process that traps heat on Earth.

Some scientists believe Titan's current environmental status may be similar to that of Earth's before life formed. During the formation of the solar system, Titan formed past the frost line where temperatures in the solar nebula were cold enough for methane, ammonia and water to condense into ice. Titan is composed mostly of ices, including methane and ammonia ice. Some of this ice sublimated long ago to form an atmosphere on Titan. Over billions of years, solar ultraviolet light broke apart the ammonia molecules into nitrogen and hydrogen. The lighter hydrogen escaped from the atmosphere but the heavier nitrogen molecules remained and accumulated to give Titan its nitrogen atmosphere. SHOW ME THE MATH Titan was recently visited by the Huygens probe , which landed successfully on the moon's mountainous surface after being released from the Cassini spacecraft in 2004. The Huygens probe sent back the first real images of Titan's mysterious surface, and scientists are still analyzing the data. Saturn's Medium-Size Moons (300 — 1,500 km in diameter) Saturn has 6 medium-size moons.

In order of increasing distance from the planet, they are: Mimas Rhea Iapetus All are heavily cratered, indicating generally ancient surfaces, but each shows evidence of past geological activity. The geological activity may seem surprising when we consider how small these moons are; all are considerably smaller than the Galilean moons. Enceladus, with its grooved terrain, is barely 500 km across (small enough to fit inside Colorado). In fact, the geological activity is probably a demonstration of the effectiveness of low temperature icy geology. Icy combinations of water, ammonia and methane can melt, deform and flow at remarkably low temperatures, producing a variety of volcanic and tectonic features. The surface of Enceladus shows signs of intense recent geologic activity. The Cassini spacecraft passed by the moon in 2005 and returned images showing ice geysers erupting from the surface. The material spewed out from these eruptions is a primary cause of Saturn's E-ring. MOONS OF URANUS Uranus has 27 known moons, all of which are named after characters from the writings of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.

Uranus' medium-size moons (300 — 1,500 km in diameter) 5 medium-size moons orbit Uranus (from innermost to outermost): Miranda Titania Oberon Uranus' medium-size moons are made of ice and rock. Like other objects that formed far from the Sun, the ice is made up of ammonia, methane and water. These moons pose several puzzles. Ariel and Umbriel are about the same size and density, but Ariel's young features indicate volcanic and tectonic activity, while Umbriel's largely cratered, uniform surface implies a lack of geologic activity. Titania and Oberon are also very close in radius, but show different levels of geologic activity. The faults on Titania indicate internal forces while Oberon's heavily cratered, icy surface shows few signs of movement. A Canyon on Miranda (click to enlarge) Voyager 2 came closest to Uranus' smallest moon, Miranda, as it passed by on its way to Neptune. The features on Miranda's surface are different from other jovian moons. With a mixture of old and new surfaces, Miranda shows relatively few craters but has a number of canyons up to 12 miles deep.

Due to Miranda's odd surface features, scientists spectulate that there is an additional source of heat, such as tidal heating. The cliff walls seen in the inset are higher than those of the Grand Canyon on Earth. Uranus' Small Moons (click to enlarge) Uranus' small moons Uranus' smallest moons are its innermost satellites. Portia heads a group of 8 inner satellites. The Portia Group consists of Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda and Perdita. The Portian orbit is slowly decaying due to tidal deceleration and may one day either break apart to form a planetary ring or could potentially collide with Uranus. Orbits of the other satellites in the Portia Group have a similar fate. (click to enlarge) Triton: The backward moon of Neptune Voyager 2 discovered many of Neptune's moons in 1989, and took pictures revealing many previously unknown properties of Triton. Triton's icy, spherical surface reflects so much of the sunlight it receives that it is the coldest world in the solar system. Triton is the only moon in the solar system with a retrograde orbit.

This, along with Triton's high inclination relative to Neptune's equator, suggests that Triton may have been captured from interplanetary space. The surface of Triton Photos of Triton show a strange surface shaped by more than just impact cratering, although its many undisturbed craters suggest that major geologic activity has subsided. Regions on Titan's surface show evidence of past volcanic and tectonic activity. The internal heat source for Triton's geologic activity is not known, but it may involve tidal heating. The sublimation of surface ices creates a thin, hazy atmosphere on Triton made mostly of Nitrogen. The atmosphere creates wind streaks on the surface, and unknown processes pump unusual plumes of gas and particles into the atmosphere. Planets in our solar system | Sun and solar system | Solar System for children | 8 planets elearnin - YouTube Planets in our solar system | Sun and solar system | Solar System for children | 8 planets elearnin Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented.

This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Sep 5, 2013 Planets in our solar system | Sun and solar system | Solar System for children | elearnin The Solar System consists of the Sun and its planetary system of eight planets, their moons, and other objects including asteroids and meteors. Our planet Earth is one among the eight planets that revolve around the Sun. It's called solar system because the word solar means relating to the sun. Since Sun is the centre most part of this system, it is called solar system. Objects seem to smaller in size when seen from a great distance but are very huge and large in reality. Similarly, the moon and stars are very big and huge in size, but appear to be smaller in size to our eyes because they are very very far away from the Earth, where we live. The distance between the objects in the solar system is so large that these numbers would run into millions and billions of kms. Hence they are measured with a specific unit called light year. One light year is exactly 9460730472580800 mts.

Sun is 149,600,000 km away from earth. Sun is very far from the Earth. That is the reason why sun looks smaller in size. Solar system is the family of the sun. Sun is very big compared to the moon, probably around 400 times bigger. Sun is also a star but, remember, it's not the biggest star in the Universe. There are lots of stars present in the universe which are very far away from the sun, some of them about thousands of light years away. That is why stars look like dots in the night sky. Sun is like a ball of fire. The sunlight from the sun takes about 8.5 minutes to reach the surface of the earth. Sun is the center of the solar system and all the planets revolve around the sun in orbits. Orbit is a curved path of an object around a point in space. Orbit means moving around in Roman. Earth is one of the planets in the solar system and takes exactly 365.25 days to revolve around the sun. Earth also rotates around its own axis in 24 hours or 1 day. Just like Earth every planet rotates on its own axis and revolves around the Sun.

Mercury: Mercury is the smallest of all planets, it is every hot as it is the closest to the sun, hence no living being can live on this planet. Mercury was named after a roman god Mercury who is the fast flying messenger. Mercury takes only 88 days to revolve around the sun, which makes it the fastest revolving planet around the sun. Venus: Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun. Venus is visible in morning and evening as the brightest star from earth. Venus takes about 244.7 days to orbit around the sun and is named after the roman goddess of love and beauty. Earth: Our planet Earth is the third closest planet to the Sun. It is blue in color as there is lot of water present on the surface of earth. Water constitutes to about 70% of entire surface on the earth. Unlike Earth, moon is not a planet. It is a natural satellite of earth and it revolves around the earth. Satellite is a smaller body which rotates around another rotating body. Earth is the only planet which has animals, trees and human beings. Mars: Mars is called the red planet because it's red in color.

This red color is due to the presence of a chemical called iron oxide. Mars is named after the roman god of war. It two moons that in turn revolve around it. Jupiter: Jupiter is the biggest and largest planet of the solar system and is named after roman god Jupiter. Jupiter is 317 times the mass of Earth. Jupiter may have all the rocky core of the heavier elements making it the biggest and the heaviest planet. Outer atmosphere of Jupiter is divided into several bands at different latitudes, resulting in storms. Jupiter has around 67 moons revolving around it. These are natural satellites of Jupiter. Saturn: Saturn is the only planet has rings around it. Saturn is named after the roman god for agriculture. Saturn has just over 95 times mass as compared to the earth. The rings around the Saturn are mostly composed of the ice particles and some rocky debris and some dust. Saturn has around 62 moons revolving around it. Uranus: Uranus is similar to Neptune and is named after the Greek god of sky Ouranos. It has around 27 natural satellites revolving around it.

The Uranus is a unique as compared to the other planets because of the fact that its axis of rotation is tilted sideways unlike the other planets. Its looks bluish-green in color because the atmosphere of Uranus is very cold and cloudy. Neptune: This is the farthest planet from the sun. It is about 17 times the size of earth. Neptune is light blue in color because it is the coldest of all planets. Neptune is the densest of all planets. It is named after the roman god for sea. There was another planetary object called Pluto which was the 9th planet but is no more considered a planet because Pluto and its moons are now considered to be a region.This region extends from the orbit of Neptune. Category

Question: Perdita is a moon of which planet in the Solar System
Answer: Uranus